Misc: List formatting, typos, raw docstrings, and unused variables

PEP 257 says 

> Use r"""raw triple double quotes""" if you use any backslashes in your docstrings.

I'm wary of removing the unused variables, since I don't know how these functions work, and their presence might indicate some unfinished feature or bug?  Maybe they should be converted to comments instead?  [Looks like they've been there since the functions were created in 2001](https://github.com/scipy/scipy/commit/9914c02ec386a389d80b0981b97d694748f28d81).